What is called "alternative medicine," like the use of herbs, for example, vastly pre-dates modern pharma therapy. The use of body therapies like massage and acupuncture goes back for thousands of years. When people get tired of the failure of "modern" therapies, they often resort to these time-honored, very well proven, largely safe therapies for help. So-called alternative therapies succeed very well in cases of chronic disorders, where so-called "conventional" medicine is excellent in a crisis, as in emergency care. Combining both approaches is true complementary medicine.
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Chelation therapy is used to treat mercury poisoning by administering drugs that bind the mercury together so it can be eliminated by the body naturally. The drugs have side effects that include pain, excessive salivation, agitation, and nausea. Chelation should be administered by professionals who are very familiar and experienced with the procedure.
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A 2004 survey from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reported that nearly 40 percent of adults use alternative medicine. Many people are combining this treatment with their conventional health care. Some people are seeking out medical doctors with training in naturopathy. The most popular complementary treatment used is non-vitamin/non-mineral dietary supplements. -
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RealAge answeredLight therapy is the controlled use of specific kinds of therapeutic light to treat certain medical conditions, especially depression associated with winter-onset seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and the skin condition psoriasis.
For example, to treat winter-onset SAD, light therapy might involve the use of a special light box (which usually emits up to 10,000 lux)or wearing a light visor for about 30 minutes each day throughout the fall and winter, when you're most likely to be depressed. Winter-onset SAD can also be treated with a “dawn simulator," a light activated by a timer that turns on early in the morning and gradually increases in brightness, mimicking a sunrise and allowing your body to wake up naturally, without using an alarm. If light therapy helps, your doctor may suggest continuing it until enough sunlight is available, typically in the springtime. Stopping light therapy too soon can result in a return of symptoms.
Light therapy is also used to treat psoriasis, a condition in which skin cells grow at an accelerated rate, causing a scaly build-up of cells on the skin. Doctors may prescribe a special kind of light that emits ultraviolet B (UVB) wavelengths (similar to those found in sunlight). UVB penetrates the skin and slows the growth of affected skin cells. Treatment involves exposing the skin to an artificial UVB light source for a set length of time on a regular schedule. This treatment is administered in a medical setting or at home under a doctor's supervision. No one should attempt to treat psoriasis by using a tanning salon or other devices on their own. -
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Dr. Mehmet Oz, MD , Cardiology (Cardiovascular Disease), answeredYou may have read about a development called chelation therapy - basically an arterial Drano. In the process, a solution is injected into your veins, and it is supposed to bind with the calcium that hardens arterial plaque and subsequently clear it through your urine.
The theory that chelation therapy works to diminish the calcium in your plaque has never been proven, but there's anecdotal evidence that it can help clear arteries in some people. It's very enticing but still experimental. An even better Drano promises to be a new drug that is a super HDL called alpha-1-Milano. Look for it in the next few years if it passes the scientifically rigorous clinical trials.
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Dr. Michael Roizen, MD , Internal Medicine, answeredWhile a large number of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) professionals have their patients' best interests in mind, shams abound. There are plenty of hucksters peddling unproven rip-offs, designed to rid patients of their cash rather than their health complaints. Some are dangerous, too. The deaths caused by the weight loss supplements that contained large amounts of the stimulant ephedra are a vivid example, but thousands of other people are saddled with problems every year because of abuse or impurity in this unregulated, hype-ridden industry. This means you need to take steps to protect yourself. -
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Dr. Michael Roizen, MD , Internal Medicine, answeredIt's vital that you tell your doctor about the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments you're using. We know from research that about three of four patients are using some form of alternative medicine right now, whether it's nightly prayer or gulping the herb yohimbe in hopes of better bedroom sessions. But how many patients tell us that they're using alternative medicines? Fewer than one in five. That rankles us, because...
- We're in the healing business and detest being kept in the dark in case you've found a great thing.
- We could send you home with a prescription that could send you to the morgue.
But we understand your reluctance to tell us; most patients think we'll just scoff at an alternative treatment, even if we don't know a thing about it. Those patients are sometimes right, if they're seeing one of the more rigid doctors with a dusty diploma. Other physicians will react with great interest, they'd find. -
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Dr. Michael Roizen, MD , Internal Medicine, answeredSee All 2 AnswersWhile many practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) were once able to work without licensing or proof of formal training (at least by U.S. standards), that's no longer the case for many of them.
As doctors and smart patients discovered that specific alternative treatments were highly effective (tugging them closer to the mainstream medicine category), medical groups created credentialing standards for them. Requirements vary from state to state, so the health commissioner's office in your state should be able to tell you the credentialing standards for specific alternative medicines and therapies. -
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Dr. Michael Roizen, MD , Internal Medicine, answeredTaking these steps will help you find a complementary and alternative medicine(CAM) practitioner who is reputable, and avoid some other pitfalls that can occur when patients try alternative therapies without becoming educated first.
- Ask your doctor if he or she will collaborate with an alternative therapy provider, and ask for referrals.
- Dial the insurance company. Some CAMs are covered, and others are for your wallet to bear alone. Likewise with different CAM practitioners. Find out your insurer's specifics.
- Ruthlessly check credentials. Find out how many years the CAM provider has been practicing, and call your state's professional, licensing, or occupational regulation offices to see if they're properly licensed or have any nasty happenstances in their history. For unlicensed fields, such as aromatherapy and biofeedback, you'll have to rely on a trustworthy referral and your gut instincts.
- Make sure the CAM practitioner is open to conventional medicine and will work with your doctor's therapy (and doesn't insist on being the alternative to your doctor's therapy). If the practitioner scoffs at conventional medicine, I'd run out of there. But that's me.
- Research the therapy before you visit the practitioner. Scam CAM providers love uninformed patients. Two great sources are the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Web site at http://nccam.nih.gov and the National Library of Medicine's Directory of Information Resources Online at http://dirline.nlm.nih.gov; the latter allows you to search a database of thousands of alternative medicine organizations.
- Find out when you can stop the therapy. Never is a bad answer; that can mean that they're hoping you'll not only be their patient, but an ATM. Some ailments will require ongoing treatment, but check the validity of the claim with your doctor.